Family’s Kin Face Huge Loss

Sitaben Patel used to tell her daughter-in-law, “If you leave, you’d better take me with you. Don’t leave me behind.”

That tender request echoes in the minds of Patel’s friends and relatives.

On May 4, the 63-year-old woman was found burned beyond recognition in the family’s Hollywood Hills home, along with her son’s wife, Gita Kumar, 42, and her grandchildren, Paras Kumar, 18, and Tulsi Kumar, 16.

The fire, which was intentionally set, swept through the close-knit family’s three-bedroom home overlooking the Hollywood Freeway.

When firefighters arrived, they saw Patel’s son, Harish “Harry” Kumar, 47, standing on the lawn, screaming for help, saying his family was inside. Relatives have been told by police that the bodies were all found in one bedroom.

A business attorney for the Kumars said $3,000 to $4,000 in cash was missing from the Lakeridge Drive home. The money, proceeds from the family’s three hotels, was being counted at home that evening.

There are no suspects in a case that an investigator has called “a real whodunit.”

Since the deaths, relatives--close and distant--have gathered from across the country. “Everybody just dropped whatever they were doing and came,” said Kirrit Bhikha, a brother-in-law who hopped on the first plane from Nashville the morning after the fire.

The relatives hold group prayers, pore over old photographs and share memories.

“Thank God they all went together, at least,” said Sagar Kumar, a 19-year-old cousin who grew up alongside the teenagers. “Those four were just inseparable.”

Eight years ago, Patel left India after her husband died and moved in with her son’s family. She became very attached to his wife. Gita Kumar, in turn, took care of her mother-in-law, buying her small but thoughtful gifts when she went on trips.

Friends remembered how “Grandma,” a petite woman who always wore traditional Indian garb and combed her hair into a neat bun, would urge them to eat whenever they visited. She was always cheerful, and the young people said they liked to joke around with her.

“We always tried to teach her slang, like, ‘What’s up, dawg?’” Sagar Kumar said. “She would copy us and laugh.”

Sagar and his cousins were born in Odessa, Texas, where both families lived for many years and got their start in the motel business. Later, the two families moved to the Los Angeles area together.

“We saw each other every day, and we were just like one big family,” he said. “We called ourselves the Brady Bunch.”

In Paras, a freshman studying business at UC San Diego, Sagar had an intimate friend who was a straight-A student and the life of the party. “He was a genius,” said Sagar, who attends UC Irvine. “He gave everyone motivation to excel.”

Sagar would poke fun at Paras’ big ears, and Sagar said he would tease him in return about his transparent sunglasses by calling him J-Lo. They drove home from college nearly every weekend to be with their family.

Tulsi was the little sister who “liked making people happy,” Sagar said.

Friends recalled Tulsi showing up with a bag filled with Del Taco breakfast burritos on the morning they took their SAT examinations, Tulsi staying up late to help friends finish homework and treating them to the movies or a meal.

“She never let us pay,” said friend Angie Juarez. “She said that if we paid her back, then we weren’t her real friends.”

Tulsi had a habit of telling friends she loved them, though some didn’t always say it back.

“Now that she’s gone, we say it more,” Susana Duarte said of the group of a dozen or so friends who congregated at a makeshift memorial outside the Kumars’ home. “Now, when we say goodbye, it’s not just ‘Bye!’ It’s goodbye with a hug.”

Relatives agreed that Gita Kumar was the glue that held the family together.

Born in England and arranged by her family to marry Harish Kumar after she immigrated to the United States, she was a savvy businesswoman and a partner with her husband in their motel ventures.

She was equally at ease in her children’s world, lip-synching to Tupac Shakur’s rap music--her daughter’s favorite--and mothering their friends by feeding them her curry and peach cobbler.

“There was nothing that she couldn’t do,” Sagar said. “She could cook. She could sew. She could climb ladders to third-story roofs to fix a hole in the roof.”

Relatives said Gita Kumar kept her door open to everyone. The family was famous for hosting large Super Bowl and Laker parties. “You never felt like you left home, that’s how much warmth was there,” said Bhikha, her brother-in-law.

Harry Kumar remains dazed by the loss, relatives said.

“We don’t know why he was left behind,” Sagar said. “We just have to make sure and take care of him and help him through this.”